Purpose

This document establishes procedures and best practices for the Unified Student Experience program.

USE Goals

The Unified Student Experience (USE) program is campus-wide program and has three primary goals:

  1. Coordination of the student programs, across all campus areas, in part helped along by ongoing online portal work, and in part, driving the online portal work. This will be achieved by establishing procedures, guidelines, best practices, resources, and support that enable campus units to align their services with the overarching goal of providing a unified student experience, in daily life and online.
  2. Reduce disparate websites, conflicting information, the proliferation of data integrations, and replace the legacy student portal known as MyCUInfo. This will be achieved by creating and maintaining common standards to which all online student transactional tools and experiences will be adopted.
  3. Introduce new online services and technologies into the USE program from the student point of view, with campus departments or units providing a welcoming, unified, intuitive, and comprehensive experience for conducting business with and getting support from CU Boulder.

USE Governance

General Best Practices for USE: The USE working group publishes best practices for those engaged in further development of USE software. See USE Best Practices.

  1. The USE Working Team has responsibility for maintaining the cohesive structure of the online experience. The USE working team duties include:
    1. continuously be informed by the student voice through UX design sessions; and) advise the USE Steering Team and USE Executive Leadership Team of the status of the CU Boulder student experience.
    2. solicit input from students regarding priorities and functionality;
    3. develop, recommend, follow, document, and maintain campus USE standards, processes, and best practices;
    4. USE program will work together with campus departments and units, beginning with a USE working team review group composed of the working team and members from units relevant to student service programs, to prioritize and integrate respective online interactions that support student services and programs within the USE framework; to ensure well-coordinated services, units will turn first to the USE software to carry out online interactions with students, either within USE a/o with USE as a unified single sign on (SSO) starting point, so that student needs are unified across the various online interactions they may need/want to engage in.
  2. USE Steering Team supports the operational efforts of the USE Working Team by providing strategic guidance. The USE Steering Team is comprised of representation from across campus, including Registrar, Student Affairs, Vice Provost for Undergraduate Students Office and others as appointed by USE Executive Leadership Team. The USE Steering Team will:
    1. approve requests for new additions/changes as prioritized and recommended by the USE Working Team;
    2. approve USE standards, best practices, and processes developed by the USE Working Team;
    3. recommend policy changes to USE standards or procedures to the USE Executive Leadership Team; and
    4. maintain and oversee the execution of an ongoing communication plan.
  3. CU Boulder has established the USE Executive Leadership Team who supports the ongoing efforts of the USE program by providing executive leadership and sponsorship

General Best Practices for USE: The USE working group publishes best practices for those engaged in further development of USE software. See USE Best Practices.

Effective Date

Wednesday, August 1, 2018

Approved By

Christina Gonzales, Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs

Author(s)

Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs, Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education, Associate Vice Chancellor for Enrollment Management, the Dean of the Graduate School, and the Associate Vice Chancellor for Information Technology